The Detroit Tigers played their final game at Tiger Stadium on Sept. 27, 1999, ending almost nine decades of baseball at the beloved ballpark.

Well, beloved by the fans. For players, the antiquated facility was short on creature comforts by the end, Mud Hens manager Doug Mientkiewicz intimated when asked about his memories of the venue.

“I’m not sure you could print them,” the 12-year Major League Baseball veteran said, smiling.

So it wasn’t the fanciest place, but for those who grew up attending games there, the quirky, rectangular venue — home of four World Series champions — holds a special place in the memory. Opened as Navin Field in 1912, it grew into a 52,416-seat, double-decked stadium with the flagpole in play, a 440-foot center-field fence, and the second deck hanging over right field.

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After it closed, the iconic stadium at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull sat for years, falling further into disrepair, with various groups trying to save the structure at different times.

Its lifeline never came to pass. Demolition on the venue began June 30, 2008, and ran through September, 2009. A decade later, the location in Corktown now is another sign of Detroit’s progress. A recently opened youth stadium sits on the same site, and a mixed-use development featuring apartments and retail is under construction.

But 10 years after it started to come down, the stadium at “The Corner” lives on for the millions who passed through its turnstiles.

The Blade’s Mark Monroe and Tom Henry give their memories:

Mark Monroe

Time stood still at Tiger Stadium, the perfect sanctuary for a father and his young son to bond over baseball.

The stunning colors took you to a faraway land. It was the perfect combination of vibrant orange and welcoming blue tones of the seats. The vivid green grass was expertly manicured, framing the dirt-brown base paths of the infield. The bright yellow pole stood like a beacon in center field.

Yet the first glimpse of the outside of this cathedral resembled an unassuming, white warehouse. Only the enormous light towers jolting out of the top hinted at what was inside.

I remember the first time taking my dad's hand and passing through the turnstiles. The smell is what first hit me. It was the freshly popped popcorn mixed with the aroma of brats with all the fixings being grilled and the decades of spilled beer combined with freshly roasted peanut shells.

And then you'd emerge from the tunnels of the bustling — and yes, dark and dank — concourse. Walking up the ramp, the sunlight framed the entrance way. With anticipation growing, the playing field opened up, encircled and enclosed by the upper and lower decks.

My dad absolutely loved the Tigers. When I was 12 — the year of the 1984 World Series championship — his favorite player was the immensely likable shortstop Alan Trammell. My favorite was his double-play partner, second baseman Lou Whitaker.

Our favorite seats were along the third-base line. It felt like you were hovering over the infield, part of the action.

We'd high-five after the booming home runs from Cecil Fielder. We'd commiserate when the Tigs couldn't seem to get an out. But we were in it together at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. I loved when they'd play “Down on the Corner,” the classic Creedence Clearwater Revival tune.

An obscure game at Tiger Stadium from the middle of the 1991 season against the Texas Rangers sticks with me for some reason.

It was a classic back-and-forth tussle with the Rangers led by Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez. I was with my dad and both of my older brothers. I was old enough to partake in the adult beverages by then.

My favorite Tiger catcher of all time, Mickey Tettleton (a close second to the ultra-competitive Lance Parrish), belted a towering home run in the third. The rotund yet always dangerous and powerful Fielder batted clean-up. Whitaker, who had sneaky power, and Lloyd Moseby also drilled homers.

Then with the game tied at 7 in the bottom of the ninth, leadoff hitter Tony Phillips smacked a walk-off home run. Phillips batted leadoff in front of the greatest double-play combo in the history of the great game, Tram and Sweet Lou. It made a winner of Mike Henneman, my second-favorite closer of all time behind Todd Jones. Jonesy was the last player I ever saw pitch at my beloved stadium.

I took the hour trek up I-75 by myself one time. I sat in the upper deck behind home plate with my Walkman, and I listened to the soothing and folksy call of the game by the late great Ernie Harwell. It was pure summer heaven. I grabbed a foul ball hit by Kirk Gibson that night. There wasn't much of a battle for it. Some of the best days were when Tiger Stadium was well, well below capacity.

But my greatest memories are with my dad and older brothers. The four of us could sit together for hours in mutual camaraderie.

One of my prized possessions is a lanyard attached to a special commemorative protective plastic pocket. It includes an original ticket to the season opener that season and also the final game in 1999.

There are two of the keepsakes. I keep one up on my mantle in my den. On the day of my father's funeral in March, 2009, I placed the other next to him in his casket. Tiger Stadium will remain a link between us forever.

Tom Henry

The first time I went to this beautiful old ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull was as a young child, in 1966 or 1967. By the time Mark "The Bird" Fidrych came from out of nowhere in 1976 to become the biggest thing in baseball since Babe Ruth, I was really yearning to make it back on a regular basis.

That happened a little in high school, but a lot more in college and once I started my first newspaper job in 1981 at The Bay City Times. Reserved seats were nice, but — to me, a rowdy rebel — paying $10 per ticket and $5 to park was just too much.

For a long time, bleacher seats went for $2.50, and you could take your chances by parking your car for free in big, vacant lots, such as one across the expressway on the other side of Rosa Parks Boulevard. Tiger Stadium was in a rough neighborhood, not far from where Detroit's infamous 1967 riots were. We jokingly said how you sometimes felt like you needed a few beers at the game just to have the guts to get back to your car.

I was a bleacher creature for many years — probably from the late 1970s until the ballpark's last game in 1999. One thing you had to realize was the difference between the lower deck bleachers (mostly families) and the upper deck bleachers (mostly us college-aged and young adult animals).

As my best friend, Doug Chech, used to say, there were no bleachers in America quite like Tiger Stadium's upper deck bleachers. It was a constant party. People had fun tapping beach balls and teasing security with futile efforts to get the balls (they'd pop them once they did).

There were plenty of times when attendance was sparse in the rest of the ballpark but packed in the upper deck. Something about the panoramic view out in center field was great.

In 1983, the year before the Tigers got off to their incredible 35-5 start and went on the win the World Series, I did a first-person story as a hot dog vendor in the bleachers. I insisted on being there during a hot Saturday afternoon game in July — not some chilly Tuesday night in April. The Tigers let me do it, provided I split my earnings with other vendors, which I naturally was more than happy to do. It was an amazing experience. Someone even called me “The Bird,” being a lot skinnier and lanky back then.

I was at Tiger Stadium (not in the bleachers) for all three World Series games at home in 1984. When the Tigers clinched the Series in Game 5, I was in the upper deck on the third-base side. I saw Kirk Gibson's epic shot off the bat of the most feared closer in the game at the time, Rich “Goose” Gossage of the San Diego Padres.

Gossage talked then-Padres manager Dick Williams out of intentionally walking Gibson. Gibson's eighth-inning shot, which sealed the game, looked like Robert Redford's blast in The Natural. Or, as Crash Davis said in Bull Durham: "Anything that travels that far ought to have a damn stewardess on it." At the time, the whole stadium rocked with the chant "Goosebusters!" in reference to Gossage and the hottest film of the time, Ghostbusters.

Tiger Stadium just oozed history, from the "No Pepper Games" signs near the dugouts to the walls. It smelled the way a ballpark should smell. It had its many obstructions and quirks — its peeling paint and bad plumbing — but, hey, it felt like home. Everyone misses the grand ol' lady.

I was there for the final game. It was important for me to take the day off and spend it by myself in the upper deck center field bleachers. They gave it a beautiful send-off, bringing back as many surviving players as they could after the game.

One by one, players came out from center field to the pitcher's mound for their ovations. Gibson got it started with a fast run and a hard slide. Fidrych, Jack Morris, and many others were there. Whitaker and Trammell came out together and took their spots at second and shortstop.

I've been to Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field, and Fenway Park, three of the oldest surviving stadiums. Tiger Stadium and Fenway opened the same day in 1912. They're each like cathedrals. 

First Published July 6, 2018, 8:00 p.m.